An HRM staff report is recommending Halifax regional council amend planning strategies and land-use bylaws to allow for a mixed-use development that will bring thousands of units of housing to Bedford Commons.
A report on the Comprehensive Neighbourhood Planning Process for Bedford Commons and Bedford will go before council on Tuesday.
Most of the 59 hectares of land proposed for development is owned by Banc Group and includes the area between Highway 102, Rocky Lake Drive, the Bedford Bypass, and Duke Street. Havill’s/Northland Mini and Mobile Homes Sales owns 4.5 hectares along Rocky Lake Drive.
Banc Group, which is owned by Alex and Besim Halef, has numerous properties across HRM and the Maritimes, including commercial properties in Bedford Commons and the undeveloped former Bloomfield School property.
Fathom Studio put in the request on behalf of Banc Group to amend the municipal planning strategy process to consider the proposed development.
According to the staff report, Halifax regional council should consider amendments to the Regional Municipal Planning Strategy, the Bedford Municipal Planning Strategy, and the Bedford Land Use By-law to allow for the development.
Proposal includes more than 6,000 units of housing
According to the Bedford Commons Growth Area Initiation report from November 2023, the proposal includes 27 multi-unit buildings ranging between six to 33 storeys, 121 townhouses and cluster homes, for a total of 6,216 units of housing.
That area is currently served by one Halifax Transit route, which stops along Damascus Road.
From the staff report:
The development plan proposes to extend Damascus Road through the Opportunity Site to Rocky Lake Drive to serve as the main thoroughfare for the new neighbourhood. Two main park spaces are proposed with one at the centre of the neighbourhood as an “urban square”, and a second larger park featuring active recreation facilities.
As for the environmental impact, the staff report said the development proposal “encourages the use of active transportation and shared mobility instead of personal motor vehicles, thereby reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”
As a greenfield development, any level of development of the subject site will likely have some adverse environmental impact. Staff will work to minimize these impacts using direction from the Halifax Green Network Plan and HalifACT.
Developer requested zone changes 11 years ago
Banc Group has been working on this development for 11 years. In 2012, the developer put in an application to rezone the lands from light industrial to a mixed-use residential development. Its proposal at that time included 600 residential units, 200,000 square feet of commercial properties, and a central village green.
But that proposal was shelved in 2014 when the regional plan valued protecting light industrial land reserve. From the Bedford Commons Growth Area Initiation report:
The developer reapplied again to the Regional Plan team in 2018 and again in 2019 for a larger development which expanded from 42 acres to 120 acres and the development scale enlarged to 1,600 units and 140,000 sf of light industrial. The concept seemed to gain traction with the regional planning team, and in 2023, a formal request for a mixed use plan was provided to the Regional Plan team which is generally supported in the latest version of the Regional Plan update
‘Range of affordable options’
The initiation reports includes a number of development objectives for the project, including ways to capture and control runoff from the site, which is close to the Sackville floodplain, ensuring the development is bike and transit friendly, creating an urban parkland, reducing the shade from the taller buildings on homes currently near the Bedford Bypass.
One of those objectives mentions “range of affordable housing options for new residents” but doesn’t say how affordable those housing options will be.
This is an area of HRM that can accommodate significant density due to the sites transportation connectivity, its adjacent existing facilities and services, and its lack of neighbouring residential uses which might be impacted by the development. This area will provide much needed housing for workers in Burnside and in the Bedford Common, and will provide a mixed use development to enhance the existing commercial uses in Bedford Common.
In the artist rendering and in the issues section of the report there is no indication that any of these units will be truly affordable. We do not need to add housing that is not affordable to young Nova Scotians. Anyone I know that are everyday Nova Scotians are convinced that their children will never own a home in Nova Scotia.
This proposal includes a lot of housing units which may have the potential to help increase the housing supply, particularly for rental units, so it may be worthy of consideration. However, I couldn’t help but notice that the staff report recommended the Municipality proceed with its normal review process for planning applications of this nature which includes a public participation program and an opportunity for comment by the various advisory committees and the Community Council.
The staff report made no reference to the possibility of having the Province designate this site as a special planning area which would allow the Province to approve development of these lands without public consultations or municipal planning approvals. Ostensibly, this process is intended to fast track housing approvals so as to increase supply more rapidly and lower costs.
So why was this not considered? The Municipality is clearly supporting this provincial initiative by providing staff resources to a provincial panel and has not objected to any of the Ministerial approvals given to date (developments at Eisner Cove and Port Wallace to the best of my knowledge but there may be others).
What are the criteria for deciding which projects get fast tracked as a special planning area? There is no hint in the legislation. The discretion rests solely with the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing which essentially means the “public interest” is being decided behind closed doors without public disclosure.
May be that the proponents for the Bedford Common just don’t have the right contacts.
The city has been quite vocally opposed to the whole special planning area stuff from the province. They cooperate to the extent they are allowed to, because they basically have to. The city has not recommended any site go to special planning because then they lose control of it. And so far all of the special planning areas seem to have been projects from a handful of well connected developers.